Quick Cryptic No 138 by Mara

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A pleasant entry level puzzle with plenty of anagram practice, no obscurities and no over-complicated wordplay. It took me 10 minutes or so with the long central clues going in last.

Across
1 BABOON – BOO (disapproving word) inside BAN (prohibition), def. primate.
4 MAY BUG – May Bug is another name for the cockchafer beetle, and it may bug you / be annoying. The word sounds like a description of something quite uncomfortable; I thought it might have appeared in a Shakespeare comedy but the etymology is later and rather more boring.
9 ART DECO – (REDCOAT)*, def. in bold style.
10 CHILE – Sounds like chilly.
11 MEET – Come across = meet, reverse of TEEM = swarm.
12 ESTONIAN – An ETONIAN is your public schoolboy, insert S = southern, def. European native.
14 INGREDIENTS – (TENDERISING)*, def. everything in a dish. Neat surface.
18 COVENTRY – COVEN = number of witches, TRY = attempt, def. English city.
20 ABUT – Something blown = TUBA, backwards, def. touch.
22 ALIBI – A LIB = a party once; I = innocent primarily, def. &lit.
23 TREASON – T (time) REASON (motive), def. crime.
24 LOATHE – (A HOTEL)*, def. abhor.
25 SPOOKY – SPY = secret agent, insert O (nothing) OK (satisfactory), def. mysterious.

Down
1 BRAHMS – Hindu priests are BRAHMINS, drop the ‘IN’, def. composer.
2 BITTERN – BITTER = cold, N = first of November, def. bird; a wading bird of the heron family.
3 OVER – Cryptic double definition.
5 ANCHORED – CHORE = routine job, is inserted into AND (a ‘joiner’, in a sentence); def. fixed.
6 BLINI – Initial letters of B(ig) L(uncheon) I(nclude) N(ine) I(ndividual), def. pancakes. Apparently blini is the plural form of blin, derived from Old Slavic mlin, meaning mill.
7 GREENE – Graham Greene is your author, sounds like the shade green.
8 CONSIDERATE – (ESCORTED IN A)*, def. kind.
13 BRANDISH – Amusing cryptic definition, a BRAN DISH is a plate of roughage, and to brandish means to shake menacingly.
13 TABASCO – BAS(S) = tailless fish, inserted into TACO = thin pancake, def. the famous brand of chilli pepper sauce, used copiously by me in tomato juice when I’m driving or on the dry.
16 SCRAWL – S (beginning to speak), CRAWL (move like a baby); def. words hard to understand.
17 STINKY – INK = fluid in pen, inserted into STY = pen (another kind of pen); def. smelly.
19 VOILA – OIL = ‘black gold’, inserted into VA = Virginia, result voilà ! A word used beaucoup in this part of France, often several times in a spoken sentence, just for emphasis; roughly translated as ‘there you have it’ or ‘there you go’.
21 KEEP – PEEK means to look, ‘up’ = reversed; def. part of a castle.

10 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 138 by Mara”

  1. I have tended to find Mara’s puzzles on the hard side but this was straightforward apart from the unknown cockchafer which I looked up. Favourite clue INGREDIENTS.
  2. I lost a minute or two getting started on this and also had a slight hold-up at the end at 5dn which I thought was perhaps on the hard side for a Quickie clue, but the rest of it was fairly straightforward. 13 minutes.

    Edited at 2014-09-17 06:14 am (UTC)

  3. 11′ with MAY BUG last in after INGREDIENTS (serves me right for trying to do the anagram in my head). Wanted ‘bonobo’ at 1a. Ever since I learned they existed, I’ve been trying to make up for lost time by shoving them in wherever I can. Yes, COCKCHAFER is a very Stephen Fry type of word.
  4. 5 mins. It took me longer than it should have done to think of MAY BUG, and it was only once I had that I was able to enter my last two, ANCHORED and INGREDIENTS. I don’t remember ever having seen the anagram for the latter before, but I surely must have done.
  5. About 20 mins for me: did it all then held up by 5dn which I got in but couldn’t parse until I came here
  6. Good puzzle. I did not find it quite as straightforward as others, by the sound of it. ABUT / TABASCO crossers held me up for some time, as did BABOON / BRAHMS.

    Good to see the Bittern getting a run out, simply because I have always liked this bird and it’s eccentric call – beautifully captured by Chaucer with “bitterne boometh in the myre…” in Wife of Bath. More should be made of this bird – it does not seem to get much airplay in contemporary culture.

    Edited at 2014-09-17 11:24 am (UTC)

    1. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard a bittern in real life, but they cropped up in a couple of the Swallows and Amazons book series by Arthur Ransome, which were much loved reading matter in my youth. However those books were all written in the 1930s, which may be more contemporary than Chaucer but is still an era before most (all?) contributors to the blog.
      1. Kids today still read those books. Well – mine have, anyway. I don’t think they are astoundingly odd (maybe just a little…)
        1. I’m with nick_the_intermediate on this (see, I thought of a new sobriquet) – some fairly demanding clues, which were also demanding fairly.
          Very sadly, bitterns are now very rarely encountered, and are so well camouflaged that they are hard to locate unless they are booming. I’ve only ever seen one, but that was a pleasure to remember.
  7. Attempted in two halves firstly in the air, then on the ground. Left half, then right. About23 mins with some Z8ery. LOI MAY BUG COD BRANDISH very witty 🙂
    Bonsoir tout le monde!

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